As you now, we have the Crowne Plaza Convention Center as the main venue and the Crowne Plaza, Mansión Teodolinda and El Conquistador Hotel as the three official hotels for DebConf12.
A few days ago, we got to know about Hotel Ticomo [0], located near the Pan American (south) highway [1]. They have space for 300-350 people, five auditoriums (main auditorium with capacity for 300 people, two auditoriums for 120 people each, and two for 50 people each), and a lot of additional space for other activities, especially outside. All rooms have air conditioning.
You can see some photos of the Ticomo Hotel at g.dc.o [2].
Advantages and difficulties of using the Ticomo Hotel as the main venue for Debconf12:
Advantages:
* Price: It's going to be a lot cheaper than the Crowne Plaza.
* We could be all together in one single place. And it is a very nice place, with trees, a lot of space to sit outside, a swimming pool and there are even two tennis courts [3].
* We would get the whole venue for us. So it would be a lot of space and liberty exclusively for DebConf.
* Being in one place all together for the conference and the night, would make it more secure, because of no need of walking with electronic equipment on the streets.
* Though it is not as comfortable as Crowne Plaza (see the difficulties), it has a more authentic nicaraguan style.
* No multinational, big chain, company. It is a family owned hotel.
Difficulties:
* The venue is not located at the center of town, as the Crowne Plaza.
* Connectivity: Since it is not in the center of town, we will have to check that the needed internet connection is available at this place.
* To leave the venue people would have to walk four hundred meters or take a moto-cab (only during day time) to the pan american highway. There you can find a super market, karaoke bars, pizzerias, a drugstore and a few restaurants. But, surely, you will not find the variety of places like close to Crowne Plaza.
* Accessibility is a difficult, since the auditoriums are spread out all over the place and a lot the terrain requieres quite a lot of steps, but the owner of the hotel promised us to build the conditions so that the hotel will be completely accessible in July. We probably would have to work hand in hand together with them to assure a successfull work on this quite difficult task.
* Hotel Ticomo is a pretty big place and providing a wifi network there is going to be more work and requires more cables, routers, etc...
* We will not have same luxury as Crowne Plaza, there are rooms for 3 to 8 persons, sharing same bathroom and in some rooms the bathroom is inside of one room. Maybe some people would even have to sleep on mattresses. The hotel is a little bit a youth hostel style (from a comfort view), the air conditions are pretty old and beds and rooms are not very new and to get all people there we would have to pack up the rooms (and some would have to sleep in double beds). Please have a look at the photos to get en impression.
* DebianDay: If we make a Debian Day outside of the center of Managua, we would get less people to attend and we will need transportation for visitors.
